The woman living in the country’s most valuable state house says it should be sold, as Kāinga Ora plans to put hundreds of homes on the market.
The state house is on a leafy street in href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/auckland/" target="_self" rel="" title="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/auckland/">Auckland‘s inner city suburb of Ponsonby and is worth close to $4 million.
Shortly after Anita Jones moved into the four-bedroom state house in 2016, she learned Lorde had bought the house next door – the pop star sold the luxury villa for $4.3m last year.
Jones said the neighbourhood has been a good place to bring up her four children, two of whom have since left home.
“I feel privileged being in it. It’s very peaceful, I can say that, there’s no drama. It’s pretty safe I can say, really safe around here.”
Anita Jones in front of the state house she lives in that is worth almost $4m. Photo /RNZ
Data from Corelogic shows the villa is the most valuable single dwelling in Kāinga Ora’s portfolio – at $3.9m.
“It’s actually quite a big property, well I reckon it is and I’m actually looking at transfering so they can have the house for a bigger family because it’s only the three of us and it’s quite big for us,” Jones said.
“My thoughts would be I reckon they should sell it.”
Building projects that would create more than 1000 state homes are on hold while Kāinga Ora reviews its portfolio, with decisions expected from July.
It also intends to sell about 900 homes nationally over the next 12-18 months – currently 49 state homes are on the market of which 32 are in Auckland.
A nearby neighbour of the most valuable state house, who wished to remain anonymous, said it does not make financial sense for the state agency to keep the Ponsonby house.
“I think it probably should be sold because it’s worth three or four million so you could probably build a lot more for that.”
Kāinga Ora said it does not have plans to develop any of its five most valuable houses, and they are not for sale.
All are in Auckland and each are worth more than $3.5m, according to CoreLogic.
Five most valuable state homes in New Zealand (supplied by Corelogic)
Ponsonby CV $3,900,000 - 619m2
Henderson CV $3,770,000 - 4626m2
Westmere CV $3,700,000 - 620m2
Westmere CV $3,650,000 - 612m2
Hillcrest CV $3,525,000 - 2904m2
CoreLogic head of research Nick Goodall said the properties’ values were tied up in large plots of land.
“It shows that you could probably build multiple units on that block of land to get better use and more people living in that area which would be well in demand from people wanting to live there to be closer to town.”
Goodall believed Kāinga Ora should be considering the future of all five of its most valuable properties.
“There’s probably lots of potential development all across Auckland. You would expect that these would be ones that would be on the list to look at.”
Kāinga Ora general manager for strategy, finance and policy Gareth Stiven said the planned sale of 900 state homes represented about 1% of its current portfolio.
“These homes will be in regions across the country. Decisions to sell specific sites will be ongoing, and at any one time there will be properties at various stages of the process.”
The country's most valuable state house is in the Auckland suburb of Ponsonby and is worth almost $4m. Photo / NZ
He said tenants would be offered another Kāinga Ora home, suited to their needs.
“Money from the sale of existing Kāinga Ora properties will be reinvested into our housing portfolio, so we can deliver new, fit-for-purpose homes that are the right size and in the right location.”
Stiven said in the next financial year, the agency estimates $400-$500m from house sales would be redirected toward new replacement homes.
“It’s also important to note we are not reducing the number of Kāinga Ora homes. For each existing Kāinga Ora home sold, a newly built home is delivered elsewhere.”
In Ponsonby, the median value of a house is $2.4m, while a flat or unit is about the $1m mark.
Jones said she was ready to move out of the area.
“It’s actually not affordable, especially in the area. Ponsonby, it’s not actually suited for low income families. It’s nice to be close to the city, but income it’s not affordable.”
She said she recently asked to transfer to another house in Auckland, partly because her family felt increasingly out of place in the upmarket suburb.
“Because I’m actually ready to move along, there’s been a lot of stuff happening inside the house and my family and we’ve kind of caused a bit of riff-raff on the street so I think it’s time for us to move.”
